He’s a third-generation dairy farmer who is excited about advancements in technology which have allowed him to improve his herd — one embryo at a time.

Nick Protzman grew up on the family farm, located along Maxwell Road near Caseville. As a local dairy farmer, Protzman said keeping up on new technology will put Huron County on the map when it comes to superior genetics for the cows he milks.

“This land where we are today was purchased years ago by my great-grandfather, Delbert Protzman. He worked for the co-op and he planned to use the land for (crop) test plots,” said Nick Protzman.

Today, the farm land is the home to Delcath Dairy, which has been passed on from one generation of Protzmans to the next.

The farm was named after Delbert and Catherine Protzman, who purchased the land in Chandler Township. It was the couple’s son, Bruce Protzman, who started the dairy farm 57 years ago, naming it Delcath Dairy.

“In the beginning, my grandfather (Bruce Protzman) used a single four-stall parlor to milk his herd,” said Protzman. “In 1974, the parlor more than doubled in size when my grandpa and my dad used a double-eight herringbone parlor, milking 65 head of cattle.”

By 1990, the farm was ready for even more improvements in both size and technology when the dairy underwent a remodel.

With the new improvements complete, it would be less than two years later when Bruce Protzman decided to retire from dairy farming and turned the business over to his son, Gary.

Gary, and his wife, Deann, raised their two sons, Nick and Kyle, and a daughter, Crystal, on the Delcath farm.

It was on the farm that Nick and Kyle, now adults, learned about dairy farming and the hard work it involves.

“It’s a 24-hour a day job,” said Nick Protzman. “But it’s work that I enjoy.”

So much so that both Nick and Kyle each went off to study dairy management in the ag tech program at Michigan State University.

When Nick returned home with his degree, he went right to work as an assistant herdsman for local dairy farmer Jake Zwemmer. He stayed until a farming accident on Feb. 8, 2005 when Nick’s father was injured.

“I broke my arm in a door on a mixer wagon,” said Gary Protzman about the accident. “Nick came home in February from Zwemmer’s. Then Kyle returned home in April from working as an assistant herdsman at John Verhaar’s farm.”

“After the accident, dad was out of commission for a while,” said Nick.

Before leaving the Zwemmer farm, Nick said he took care of the reproduction duties there and found a real passion for the work.

“I came back home to work and since then I have been trying to bring new ideas to the farm ever since,” he said. “When I came back home we were milking 130 head. Then we went to up 300. Since then, we’ve remodeled the barns and we’re milking 480 cows now. We’re at about 520 head, counting our dry cows.”

The expansion of the herd is something Nick Protzman said he keeps close tabs on, especially since he’s found a way to expand the herd while improving the quality of milking cows they have on their farm through embryo transfer.

“I’ve been doing a lot of research,” said Nick Protzman. “It’s very important to keep up on replacing and rolling the herd. As the cows get older, or the farm suffers a loss of an animal due to death, it’s important to work toward replacing your cows with your own animals or the herd will dwindle to nothing.”

With the ability of fetal sexing the calves before birth, Protzman said he has a better handle on what to expect before the calf hits the ground.

“With the traditional method, a cow gives birth after nine months. So, if you have one really good cow, you might, if you’re lucky, get one calf a year,” he said. “With embryo transfer, I can take the genetics from a really good cow and genetics from a really good bull and implant that embryo in a not-so-good cow and improve the herd that way.”

“Using embryo transfer is the way to go. I can produce far more off-spring this way than the traditional way. I can have three or four cows carrying off-spring of our superior animals. It saves the farm money and improves the herd.”

In order to be an ET technician, Protzman spent time with a certified technician who came to the family farm.

“I watched and then started doing it on my own. When I was ready to get certified, I went to Mississippi and took a 10-day training course. I got certified on the first day,” he said. “By the second day, I got my certificate and spent the rest of the time helping the instructor with the other students.

“I had an advantage. I had worked at Zwemmer’s breeding 5,000 animals a year. I knew the internal parts of a cow real well.”

Protzman said since becoming certified, he’s been lending his services as an ET technician and his knowledge on fetal sexing to area farmers as sort of a side business.

“I’m getting into this more and more each day,” he said. “The idea isn’t to just increase production, but to make a better animal, too.

“We’re producing good sound cows here. I hope some day people will say, ‘Look what Huron County is doing.’”